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School violence–mini survey raises big worry

Despite the great efforts made by educators, parents and relevant agencies, school violence still cannot be stopped and it has been spreading.

The police station of a ward in District 12 of HCM City, has received a clip showing 6-7th grade female students brutally beating a 7th grade female student because of the jealousy. One of the four female students even took off the shirt of the victim while the other three filmed the scene.

In order to learn about what Vietnamese students think about school violence, Saigon Tiep Thi has made a mini survey on 20 8th grade female students, and 19 10th grade female students in some districts in HCM City, and has found many surprising things.

Fighting to scramble forâ¦ lovers

When asked why students fight each other, 14 polled students said it was because they were outraged by friends. Meanwhile, four students said that it was because of jealousy.

M.C, a 10th grader of Marie Curie School said, “It is a normal thing to fight to scramble for lovers. If someone loses his girlfriends into the hands of other boys, he would need to “have a talk” with the boys, and if the talk cannot help, it is necessary to settle the problem with a fight”.

Speaking ill of friends is also an important reason which leads to many conflicts among students. Female students always gather in groups, and if one girl of a group dislikes another girl in another group, the two groups would become enemies. The strength of the whole groups can make their members feel more confident, which also encourages the eversion among friends.

An important finding of the survey is that many students fought each other just because they disliked friends when looking into the friend’s face, or they felt the friend’s clothes were “terrible”.

In some other cases, students fought because they wanted to stand up for their closes friends and defend the friends from the attacks from others.

Especially, the mini survey has found three cases, where students fought classmates just because the classmates got higher marks than the students.

Most of the fighting cases occurred with the students, who learned poorly or the ones who did not pay much attention to learning.

Why fight?

In 2010, a lot of clips showing students fighting each other were posted on the Internet which caused a shock to the public. In the first months of 2011, a lot of other clips were shown on the Internet, including the 9-minute one about the fight of a group of 9th graders in Lam Dong province. A CD about the fight has also been published and put on sale.

Why fight? V.A, an 8th grader of Hoa Lu Secondary School, said that many parents do not pay appropriate attention to educate their children, therefore, schoolboys and schoolgirls will do everything they want. Besides, V.A also thinks that many students suffer from the “emotional deprivation” or the heavy school curriculums that have made them tired and corrupted them.

L.D, also a student of Hoa Lu Secondary School, said that many students joined the fights just because of “a superficial minute”. T.H believes that students fight because they want to show that they are the persons with firm stuff. M.D thinks that some students fight just because they want to follow others, while N.L said students want to show that they are better than others.

The surveyors have rung the alarm bell in the public when releasing the shocking information that nearly all students say they do not intend to dissuade friends from fighting each other.

“If they fight each other, I will be standing apart,” was the answer from many students. Some students said they would report the fighting cases to teachers or the police. Others said they would not “get involved in the fights”, because they cannot help stop fighting. A lot of students said that they would intervene only if the victims were their friends.